


Outlines and Watercolors

by tech_ftw



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Secret Santa 2017, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:05:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13135929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tech_ftw/pseuds/tech_ftw
Summary: Tetsurou had a secret.  He was trying to make it not a secret, he was just...really bad at it.Alternate Title:  Reasons Why Kuroo Should Leave the Planning to Kenma





	Outlines and Watercolors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lyrebirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrebirds/gifts).



> This is a Secret Santa fic for Lyrebirds, so I hope she likes it!

“Kuro, you forgot your guard,” said Kenma, holding the thin strip of leather out to him.  They were standing off to the side in the club room after practice, shielded slightly from the chaos caused by the rest of their rowdy teammates.

Taking the guard back and expertly tying it around his left wrist one-handed, Tetsurou commented, “I don’t know how I keep losing it these days.”

Kenma nodded, silent.  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, showing a type of reticence he didn’t usually have with Tetsurou.  Tetsurou held his breath—

Kenma nodded to himself, returned to his backpack a couple feet away, and finished changing out of his volleyball uniform.  The edges of Tetsurou’s lips tilted up in a rueful smile as he shook his head and yelled at Taketora to stop spazzing out.

The din from the opposite side of the club room quieted enough for Tetsurou to concentrate again.  He sat on the floor and pulled off his dirty socks, replacing them with clean ones from his sports bag.

The guard on his left wrist felt heavier than usual; lately, it seemed to be getting heavier with each passing day.

Tetsurou knew it was psychosomatic; he wanted to show off his soul mark, announce it to the world.

The problem was Kenma.

Tetsurou cringed; Kenma was never the problem, not really.  Kenma didn’t even know there was a problem.  Quite by accident, Tetsurou had caught a glimpse of Kenma’s soul mark over summer break and couldn’t get it out of his head.

Tetsurou’s mark was a collection of brown, black, and white splotches of color that made very little sense.  It was in the vague shape of a cat, but Tetsurou had long ago convinced himself that the cat-shape was just his mind trying to make sense of the chaos. 

Until he saw Kenma’s mark.

Kenma’s mark was the outline of a cat with its head turned away.  From his fleeting glance, Tetsurou knew that it matched up perfectly with his own mark.  Kenma had the outline; Tetsurou had the colors.

The problem wasn’t Kenma.  The problem was that Tetsurou found out before Kenma.

Tetsurou had known Kenma since they were small children.  He liked to think he had a firmer grasp of Kenma’s personality than most people did and he knew that Kenma did not like changes being made to his routine without prior notice.

So Tetsurou started playing the long game; he set up situations in order for Kenma to see Tetsurou’s mark, make peace with it on his own terms, and tell Tetsurou when he was ready. 

He “forgot” his guard at inopportune times.  He lifted the guard to scratch at an imaginary itch in full view of Kenma.  He wore long sleeves on hot days and pulled the sleeves up, ready with an excuse that he didn’t wear his guard because he thought the sleeves would cover his mark well enough.

Kenma never asked. 

(Tetsurou eventually gave up on the long sleeves plan, however, when Yaku pulled him aside and asked him very seriously if he was having issues at home, because why else would he wear a heavy-fabric, long-sleeved shirt on one of the hottest days of the year when he was clearly miserable?  Tetsurou tried again when summer shifted to fall, but it was just as ineffective as before.)

As far as Tetsurou could tell, Kenma – being the genuinely good person he was – always politely (or anxiously) averted his eyes and informed Tetsurou of his “mistake.”

It was driving Tetsurou insane.

0 0 0

“Kuro, it’s almost winter,” complained Kenma.  He pointedly looked up at the overcast grey sky that had been threatening snow all day.  Tetsurou had Kenma’s wrist in a death grip and was dragging him along behind him.

“Swimming helps build arm muscles,” repeated Tetsurou for the fourth time.  He was unceasingly cheerful and he could tell it was getting on Kenma’s nerves.  (The best-friend-since-childhood part of him took great joy in mildly annoying Kenma, which only helped fuel his joyous disposition.)

“I’m going to get a cold,” said Kenma.  “Colds don’t help in volleyball.”

“I’ll make sure you don’t get a cold.”

“I’m going to freeze to death.  Corpses don’t help in volleyball.”

“The school pool is indoor.”

Kenma frowned.  “Is it heated?”

“Weeeellllll--”

“It’s almost winter,” repeated Kenma, restarting the cycle their conversation had gone through multiple times.  “I’m going to freeze to death.”

Kenma plodded along slowly behind Tetsurou, distaste etched into the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his chin.  Tetsurou slowed to a stop.  “Kenma--”

“We can go,” preempted Kenma, meeting Tetsurou’s gaze.  His lips were turned down in a moue of annoyance, but he said, “You want to go.”

“You don’t.”

Kenma shifted, uneasy.

“Kenma?  We don’t have--”

“We haven’t done anything together in a while,” admitted Kenma.  He looked to the side of Tetsurou’s face while he was talking, fingers twisting restlessly in Tetsurou’s grip until he slipped free.  As the silence grew longer, his nervous twitches became more apparent.

Tetsurou took a step back.

Had he not been spending his time with Kenma?  He thought about him so often, it always seemed like Kenma was there, but when Tetsurou _really_ thought about it, most of the brainstorming for this (dumb) plan was done when Tetsurou was alone.  And Tetsurou had been spending a _lot_ of his time lately brainstorming.

As his myriad of unsuccessful attempts to get Kenma to see his soul mark could attest.  He wasn’t getting anywhere, but, hey, he was trying.

“You’re right,” said Tetsurou.  “Where do you want to go?”

Kenma stopped fidgeting.  “We can go to the pool.”

Tetsurou shrugged.  “I don’t want to go to the pool.  I want to go where you want to go.”

“Arcade.”

“Hm?”

“I want to go to the arcade.”

Tetsurou pursed his lips and nodded.  “I should have expected that, right?”

Kenma nodded, a slight smile playing at the edges of his lips.

“All right.”  Tetsurou clapped his hands together and started walking in the opposite direction.  “I expect you to win five stuffed animals for me.”

“…two.”

“Four.”

“Two.”

“Three?”

“Two.”

(Kenma ended up with three stuffed animals and two figurines and gave all but the plushie cat to Tetsurou.  There had been no chance of seeing Tetsurou’s soul mark, but there were other days for that.)

0 0 0 

_Tetsurou, what are you doing?_

Was this okay?  It wasn’t like Tetsurou was planning on doing anything pervy to Kenma, he would just _happen_ to not be wearing as many clothes as he normally was and, if Kenma just _happened_ to see his soul mark, then that was that.

Nobody really wore their guard to the shower anyway.  No one would think it was strange that Tetsurou had left his at home.

Tetsurou walked down the hallway in the Kozume household, a towel slung over his shoulder.  Kenma’s mom had given it to him along with her blessing to use their shower because Tetsurou’s house was having trouble with the hot water.

It wasn’t even a lie.  Unfortunately.

As Tetsurou passed by Kenma’s open bedroom door, Kenma poked his head out.  “Kuro, what are you doing?”

 “…what does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks like you’re stealing a towel,” said Kenma flatly.

Tetsurou raised a hand to his heart.  “I’m wounded, Kenma, that you would think so lowly of me.”

“You’ve stolen towels from us before.”

“I was eight!”

Kenma shrugged.

“Your kind and generous mother is letting me, your closest friend since childhood, use your shower.”

Kenma stared, studying Tetsurou’s face.  “…hot water again?”

Tetsurou groaned.  “Every time, they say they’ve definitely fixed the problem, and then we lose hot water again two days later.  It’s impossible.”

He peeked around Kenma and saw the light from Kenma’s television.  “Video games?”

Kenma nodded.

“Still trying to beat the blue dragon thing with the spiky tail?”

Kenma nodded again.

“Mind if I hang out after my shower?”

Kenma paused, then said, “You don’t have to.”

Tetsurou rolled his eyes.  “If I had to, I wouldn’t do it.”  Kenma appeared to weigh that statement against Tetsurou’s character, then accepted it as truth.  “The more I think about it, the more I realize you were right, about the whole not-spending-much-time-together thing.  I want to fix that.”

Kenma bit his lip, then nodded.  “My door will be open.”

(It turned out, trying to get Kenma to notice something outside of video games while he was playing was not the best plan.  At the end of the night, Tetsurou wasn’t even sure Kenma realized Tetsurou hadn’t been wearing his guard.)

(It was still fun, though.)

0 0 0

Getting Bokuto involved took significantly less work than Tetsurou had been expecting. 

Bokuto and Akaashi were a strange case in that they had found each other while they were still young, like Tetsurou and Kenma.  Unlike Tetsurou and Kenma, however, Bokuto had never worn a guard, so Akaashi was able to tell Bokuto they were soulmates the very first day they met.

Bokuto insisted it was very romantic; Akaashi was quick to point out there had been very little romance to be found in the club room, surrounded by the smell of must and dirty socks, dripping sweat from their first volleyball practice.

As it was, Bokuto was a sappy romantic and, when Tetsurou went to him for help, he was eager to provide romantic clichés that could help Tetsurou take off his shirt in front of Kenma.  For example: coffee.

Spill coffee on Tetsurou’s shirt, Tetsurou has to take off said shirt, Kenma sees soul mark, they ride off into the sunset.

It was a little over the top, but Tetsurou was willing to take it.  Honestly, he was running out of ideas at this point.

Getting Kenma to the coffee shop was easy.  Tetsurou promised to buy him whatever he wanted and to pay for all of Kenma’s games the next time they went to an arcade.  Tetsurou’s meager wallet cried at the prospect, but Tetsurou was prepared to make sacrifices.

“I’ve heard they have great coffee,” said Tetsurou, holding the door open for Kenma.  Kenma stopped in his tracks and stared at the door, then Tetsurou, then the door again.

“You’re acting weird,” he stated, walking past him to stand in line.

Tetsurou scanned the faces of people milling about, people waiting for their coffee, people sitting at tables—

Ah.

“Kenma, look, it’s Bokuto and Akaashi,” said Tetsurou, pointing in their direction.  Bokuto waved enthusiastically and Akaashi grinned.

Tetsurou held back a groan.  Bokuto was supposed to keep the plan to himself, but it was evident from the amusement in Akaashi’s eyes that Bokuto had spilled _all_ the beans.  Tetsurou would have to come up with a way to annoy Bokuto for betraying his trust.

Later.  He could come up with that plan _later_ , because he was still currently working on Operation Get Kenma To Be Okay With Being His Soulmate. 

One plan at a time.

“Why are we here?” asked Kenma.  They were three people away from the register and Kenma’s analytical gaze was searching the area for clues.

“What do you mean?”

Kenma leveled a glare at him.  “Your innocent voice hasn’t worked on me since elementary school.”

“Oh?  So, it worked before then?”

Kenma rolled his eyes.  “ _And_ using it now means you _are_ trying to pull off some scheme.”

“Scheme?  Kenma, how rude.”

“You sound like Oikawa.”

“Kenma!” said Tetsurou, scandalized.

Kenma shuffled closer to Tetsurou to get some distance between him and a couple patrons having a rowdy conversation while they waited for their drinks.  Subtly, Tetsurou shifted the way they were standing, so Kenma was on the side of the line that wasn’t next to the drink pick-up area.

The train of conversation was effectively derailed when they made it to the front of the line and gave their orders.  Kenma ordered a caramel apple spice and Tetsurou got…an iced coffee.

A resounding silence settled in after Tetsurou ordered.  Kenma’s contemplative expression returned and the cashier politely parroted back, “One caramel apple spice and one…iced coffee?”

Tetsurou nodded and paid, but while he and Kenma were waiting, Kenma said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink an iced coffee.”

“I wanted to try something new,” said Tetsurou.  “Change can be good.”

Kenma was silent for a moment.  “It also seems strange to start drinking a cold drink on the coldest day of the year so far.”

“I had a craving,” said Tetsurou with a shrug.  “It’ll start snowing soon, so if I waited any longer, it would have been too cold.”

“…You’re still acting weird,” said Kenma, but he allowed the moment to pass without further comment.  They grabbed their drinks and made their way to Bokuto and Akaashi. 

“How unexpected to see you two here,” said Akaashi, his amused little smile still in place.  Next to him, Bokuto nodded far too enthusiastically.

Kenma sat down across from Akaashi with a nod, but he had the same look in his eyes that he had during volleyball games, trying to figure out what was going to happen before it happened.

They couldn’t waste any time.

Tetsurou gave Bokuto the signal and Bokuto announced, “I have to go to the bathroom!”

Bokuto was _supposed_ to stand up too quickly and somehow spill Tetsurou’s drink all over him.  Instead, Bokuto stood up too quickly and spilled half of _his own_ still steaming cup of coffee down Tetsurou’s front.

Kenma cried out in alarm, which confused Tetsurou until the burning pain set in.

“That’s hot,” said Tetsurou nonsensically.  He kept repeating it in his head because how dumb was that?  Of course it was hot, it was freshly brewed coffee.

In that moment, it occurred to him that this was possibly not the best plan.

Kenma ended up peeling Tetsurou’s shirt off in the middle of the coffee shop while everyone watched in horror.  Bokuto threw napkins at him, eyes so wide they almost overtook his face.  As more of Tetsurou’s reddened skin was revealed, Akaashi looked very close to confessing to Kenma about the plan, so Tetsurou shoved Bokuto in his direction to deal with it.

Tetsurou begged the manager not to call emergency services.  He accepted a shirt they had stashed in the back for new employees, and fled the scene as soon as possible.  Kenma followed Tetsurou as he limped away, offering farewells to Akaashi and Bokuto and thanking the manager for his helpfulness.

If the situation hadn’t been so painful and uncomfortable, Tetsurou would have been proud of how active Kenma had been in taking control of the situation.

Over the next week, Bokuto kept sending him progressively sadder-looking owls over text until Tetsurou threatened to tell Akaashi that Bokuto was slacking off on his schoolwork again if he didn’t stop.

(Tetsurou chose to look on the bright side.  Kenma took off Tetsurou’s shirt, which was progress.  The fact that it had been due to an emergency was…the opposite of progress.  Overall, the day was a bit of a disaster.)

0 0 0

“Why do you look so down lately?” asked Yaku, sliding into the empty seat in front of Tetsurou.

Tetsurou was sitting at his desk, a wrapped bento laying untouched before him while he stared out the window, his chin in his palm.  Yaku coming to eat lunch with him wasn’t unheard of, but it was uncommon enough to seem out of the ordinary.

Tetsurou watched Yaku open his own bento, then ignore it and open Tetsurou’s, blatantly stealing bits of rice, salmon and vegetables from it.  “I was going to eat that.”

“I can spit it back up for you?”

“I licked everything in there,” said Tetsurou idly, turning back to the window.

“I’ll live.”

They sat in silence for half of the lunch hour.  Yaku managed to pack away a little under half of Tetsurou’s bento along with his own, then shoved the remains in Tetsurou’s direction.  “We have practice this afternoon.  Eat something.”

"I thought you were going to eat all my food.”

“Not _all_ of it,” said Yaku, grinning.  Tetsurou sighed and leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs as he stared at the ceiling.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Hm?”

“Whatever’s bothering you.  I meant it when I said you’ve been looking down lately.”

“Do you ever worry about your soulmate?”

Yaku sat up a tiny bit straighter.  “Not really.  Why?”

“Why do you not worry?”

“Because I know it’ll work out when it works out.”  He paused.  “It would be great if I could meet whoever it is now, but I can’t do anything about that.  I don’t see the point in worrying about it.”

Tetsurou leaned forward until all four legs of his chair were back on the ground.  “That’s remarkably Zen of you, Yakkun.”

Yaku shrugged.  “You’re worried about your soulmate, then?”

Tetsurou sighed.  “Not really.  Impatient, I guess?  I found out who my soulmate was last summer, but now I don’t--”

“Who is it?” interrupted Yaku, eyes intent.

“Does it matter?” asked Tetsurou.  Yaku nodded, once, sharply.  “You can’t tell him.”

“It’s Kenma, isn’t it?” asked Yaku.  Tetsurou’s mouth hung open inelegantly.  “Right?  You’re worried about Kenma?”

“How did…I mean, how do you…”

Yaku waved a hand.  “Forget that.  Why are you worried about Kenma?”

Tetsurou weighed his options for continuing their conversation, but he had never been the type to take the safe route.  “I’m worried Kenma will shut me out when he figures out I’m his soulmate.  You know how much he hates surprises.”

Yaku hummed noncommittally.  “Yeah, I remember that surprise party Lev tried to throw him.  I think that was the first time I’d ever seen Kenma flat out threaten someone before.”

Tetsurou picked up his chopsticks moodily and shoved rice into his mouth.  Yaku patted him on the shoulder sympathetically.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’ll have that problem.”

“Mrhut?”  Tetsurou picked up a piece of grilled salmon and shoved it in his mouth with the rice.  He knew his cheeks had to be bulging ridiculously, but he was allowed to be petty and take his annoyance out on food if he wanted to.

Yaku raised a judgmental eyebrow, picking up his empty bento box and standing as he got ready to leave.  “Kenma’s been waiting for you to get a clue since last summer.”

0 0 0

The ringing bell that signaled the end of lunch was the only thing that stopped Tetsurou from sprinting to Kenma’s classroom and demanding they hash out their situation right there.  As soon as Yaku slipped out of the classroom, Tetsurou’s teacher entered and thus began the longest, most useless hour of instruction of Tetsurou’s life.

He couldn’t focus on a single word that came out of the teacher’s mouth.  He got called on once while spacing out and the class laughed at him, but the second time he was forced to the front to work out a problem until the teacher felt sufficiently bad for him and mercifully let him return to his seat.  Some other unfortunate soul got stuck trying to fix the mess he had made on the board.

It was excruciating.

As soon as the bell signaled class was over, Tetsurou darted out and ran down the stairs, taking them three at a time and dodging around other students.  As soon as he opened the door to Kenma’s classroom, every person in the room turned their eyes to him.

Except Kenma.

Kenma, who looked absolutely perfect, ignoring the world and playing the same game he had spent the last two weeks trying to beat.  Tetsurou grinned.

“Kenma!”

Kenma jumped in his seat; whispers were already starting.  Tetsurou jerked his head in the direction of the hallway.  “Coach wants to talk to us.  Said it can’t wait.”

Kenma hunched over to put his PSP back in his desk and followed Tetsurou to the hall.  Tetsurou closed the door behind them.  Without actually saying anything, Tetsurou led Kenma down the hall in the opposite direction of Coach’s office.

Kenma must have already figured out Tetsurou had lied for some reason, because he followed without comment or complaint.

They ended up on the roof of the school.  Even with the afternoon sun high in the sky, it was cold, especially with the chilly wind rattling their bones nonstop.  Tetsurou couldn’t focus on that.  Kenma stood before him, arms at his sides; he seemed more relaxed than he had in months.

“Yaku told you,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“You knew?”

Kenma nodded.  The calm he had possessed only seconds prior broke and he started to fidget again.  A crease formed between his eyebrows.  “I’ve always known.”

“But…for how long?”

The fidgeting was back in full force.  Kenma wouldn’t meet Tetsurou’s eyes.  “Always.”

“But Yaku said…”  Tetsurou trailed off.  Yaku had definitely said ‘since last summer.’  “But I’ve seen your wrist before; it was bare.  Did I just not see it?  I don’t know how I could have…”

Kenma shook his head.  “I got my mark last summer, when I started wearing a guard.” 

Kenma was shivering almost violently and Tetsurou couldn’t decide if it was because of nerves or the cold or both.

Kenma’s tongue darted out to wet his lips.  “…I’ve always known it was going to be you.  When I got my mark, I knew you already had yours, so…I just waited for you to put it together.”

Tetsurou thought back to last summer.

The day he had seen Kenma’s soul mark had been a day of oddities.  Kenma hadn’t grumbled when Tetsurou strong-armed him into practicing volleyball, which Tetsurou had chalked up to him being in a good mood because he had finally beaten the game he had been struggling with since summer break began.

When Kenma had refused to toss any more, he had invited Tetsurou back to eat lunch at the Kozume household because they had leftovers from the previous night.  Tetsurou had chatted with Kenma’s mom for a couple minutes while Kenma went ahead.  By the time Tetsurou went up to Kenma’s room, he walked in without knocking, like usual, and Kenma had been standing there without a shirt on—

Tetsurou started laughing.

Kenma looked so tense he was ready to explode, but Tetsurou just said, “Oh my god, it took you one try to successfully do what I have been trying to do ever since.”

“What?”

“Kenma, I’ve been trying to get you to see my soul mark since last summer.”  Tetsurou started laughing again. 

Kenma’s uncertainty vanished and his expression morphed into one of annoyance.  “Is _that_ why you kept losing your guard?  Inuoka was starting to think we were going to have to super glue it to your wrist.”

“He noticed that?”

“ _Everyone_ noticed that,” said Kenma.

 “…did it work?”

“Hm?”

 “Did you see my soul mark?” asked Tetsurou.  His hands suddenly felt clammy; his face was hot.  “You haven’t, have you?”

Kenma shook his head.

Tetsurou held out his arm, guard secured snugly around his wrist.  “Do you want to?”

Kenma stared at the unadorned strip of leather.  He held out his own hand – his own guard – to Tetsurou.  With a grin, Tetsurou untied the leather band around Kenma’s wrist, then waited for Kenma to do the same for him.

Perhaps because it was the first time he was seeing it, Kenma took longer.  He ran his fingers along the edges of the leather, then stared again for a moment.  After a few moments filled only with the sound of the wind howling in the background, he untangled the knot holding the guard in place and let it fall to the ground.

The moment Kenma saw Tetsurou’s mark seemed impossibly long.  Tetsurou let out a nervous breath; somewhere in the back of his mind, he had been worried Kenma would say that Tetsurou had been mistaken.

Instead, Kenma traced the splashes of color with reverence, breath caught in his throat.

His fingers were trembling again and Tetsurou still wasn’t sure if it was nerves or cold, but he pulled Kenma close, turning him just enough so Kenma’s back was pressed against Tetsurou’s chest.  Kenma refused to look away from Tetsurou’s soul mark.

Tetsurou lifted Kenma’s hand until the two soul marks were right next to each other, an outline and the color within.  He leaned down and nuzzled Kenma’s ear, content.  “Well, what do you know?  They’re a perfect match.”

 


End file.
